Chapter 123

"We've checked everything thoroughly. No issues." Kirk kept his head bowed, his voice respectful.

At first, he too had suspected Jack was working with someone on the inside — a plant, maybe, coordinating with casino staff to rig the game.

But after a thorough sweep, he couldn't find a single crack in the story.

Karina's brow furrowed slightly at his words.

"You said he's coming back in five days?"

"Yes."

Karina didn't respond right away. She moved slowly toward the massive mahogany desk, her fingertips tapping a quiet, steady rhythm against its surface.

The sound carried sharply through the dead silence of the office — like a countdown.

"Five days..." she murmured, repeating the words as if tasting them, turning them over for hidden meaning. "He wins over three billion dollars, doesn't cash out, doesn't walk away — instead, he leaves his chips sitting in the casino. And on top of that, he has the nerve to say he's going to win the whole place."

Her fingers went still. She raised her head, and something cold and dangerous flickered behind her eyes. "Kirk — do you actually think a person like that exists in the real world?"

"I..."

A fine sheen of sweat broke across Kirk's forehead. He chose his words carefully. "Forgive me if I'm wrong, but... I think it's one of two things. Either this man is so arrogant, so drunk on winning, that he's lost all sense of reason — or he's operating from a position of absolute confidence, and three billion dollars means nothing to him." He paused. "Maybe... he's playing the long game. Setting the hook before he reels in something bigger."

"Arrogant? Drunk on winning?" A cold laugh escaped Karina's lips — a sound with no warmth in it at all. "A man who walked out of your casino three billion dollars richer, right under your nose, without leaving a single trace of how he did it — and you think he's some brainless gambler who got lucky?"

She turned and crossed to the bar cart near the window, pouring herself a measure of whiskey. The amber liquid caught the light as it swirled in the crystal glass, scattering broken reflections across the walls.

"You're not wrong," she said quietly. "He is fishing."

"And I'm the one he's fishing for." She tipped the glass back and drained it in one swallow. The burn traced a slow, furious path down her throat.

"That money is bait." Karina set the empty glass down on the desk with a sharp crack. "He doesn't want three billion dollars. He wants this casino. He used three billion dollars to lure me in — and if I'm reading him right, he wants far more than just the building."

Kirk sucked in a breath. "Boss — what do we do?"

"Relax." Karina turned, and the unease in her expression had been replaced by something cool and precise. "He was bold enough to set the trap. I'm bold enough to walk into it." She paused. "The only question is..."

She moved to the window and looked out over the city below — the sprawl of lights burning bright against the dark. The corner of her mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "...who ends up as the catch."

"Casino operates as normal in five days." Her voice was quiet, but it carried the kind of weight that didn't invite argument. "I want to see exactly how he plans to take what's mine."

"Yes, ma'am."

Kirk dipped his head in a respectful nod.

"One more thing — have we figured out who he is?" Karina asked, almost as an afterthought.

"We've looked into it. So far, all we know is that his name is Jack, and he came in from Viridis State. We're still digging for more."

"What?!"

Karina spun around. The carefully maintained stillness in her eyes shattered in an instant — something vast and turbulent rising in its place. She stared at Kirk, her voice climbing sharply, stripped raw with disbelief. "Viridis State?! Are you certain?"

"Absolutely certain." Kirk flinched at her sudden reaction and quickly lowered his head. "We pulled his travel records through a back-channel source. He definitely came in from Viridis State..."

"Boss — are you all right?" Kirk asked carefully, watching the color drain from her face.

"It's nothing."

Karina exhaled slowly and waved a hand toward the door. "You're dismissed."

"Yes, ma'am."

Kirk backed out of the room with a respectful nod and pulled the door shut behind him.

Only then did the rigid set of Karina's expression begin to soften.

She crossed to the sofa beside her desk and lowered herself onto it, the strength seeming to leave her all at once, her body sinking deep into the soft leather cushions.

The office was utterly silent. The only sound was the faint, patient tick of the antique clock mounted on the wall.

Karina closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her temples, where a dull ache had begun to pulse.

"Jack..." she whispered the name to no one, and without meaning to, she saw him — a little boy, a flash of a face she hadn't let herself think about in years.

She leaned forward and pulled open the desk drawer.

Inside lay a photograph.

A man.

The edges of the print had yellowed and begun to curl, and a faint layer of dust had settled over the surface — but his face was still clear. Still unmistakable.

He was young in the photo, wearing a faded jacket worn soft from too many washes, leaning against a weathered brick wall with a coin turning lazily between his fingers. He was grinning — the kind of grin that said he knew exactly how much trouble he was — and his eyes held a wildness in them, a quiet defiance, as though no rule in the world had ever been written with him in mind.

Karina reached out and traced her fingertip along the line of his jaw, her touch so gentle it might have been something fragile she was afraid to break.

Her eyes burned. The heat crept in slowly, and then all at once the mask she wore — the cold, untouchable, ruthless version of herself that she showed the rest of the world — simply fell away. What was left underneath was something small and unguarded and aching.

"William..." His name came out barely a sound. Her voice trembled around it.

"Do you think... this Jack could be him?"

No one answered. The office held its silence.

Karina slowly lowered her head and pressed the yellowed photograph against her chest.

Her arms folded over it, holding it close — not like a piece of paper, but like the man himself, like something she had spent years reaching for in the dark.

"If it really is him... then maybe it'll finally be okay." Her voice dropped to almost nothing. "Maybe I can finally come find you."

She rested her cheek gently against the photograph and let her eyes fall closed. A single tear slipped free, tracing a slow, silent path down her pale face before soaking into the fragile, yellowed paper.

"William... I miss you so much."

Exhaustion rolled over her like a tide — the kind that settles into the bones of someone who has been walking through a storm for far too long and has finally, for just a moment, found somewhere to stop.

Wrapped in that quiet, imagined closeness — in something that almost felt like him — the tension eased out of her body, degree by slow degree.

Her breathing deepened. Steadied. And there on the sofa, still holding the photograph to her chest, Karina slept.

If Jack had been there to see it, he would have been stunned.

Every piece of intelligence he had gathered pointed to the same conclusion: Isabella had been sent by Karina to get close to William. And it was Karina who had given the order to have him killed.

And yet here she was.

Clutching William's photograph. Crying over him. Looking for all the world like a woman still in love.

She had seemed to love him — genuinely, deeply. So why have him killed?

It didn't add up. It made no sense at all.